Northumberland cuts funding to The Help Centre

County changing the way it delivers services

Northumberland cuts funding to The Help Centre

Peter Redman

COBOURG -- Bill Crosier is managing director of The Help Centre which is slated to lose $93,000 in funding from the County. Mr. Crosier said it is a significant amount for the small agency and fears a reduction in services to the community will occur. January 7 2013

NORTHUMBERLAND -- The Help Centre in Cobourg has laid off staff and is looking at how it will continue to provide services, following a cut in funding from Northumberland County.

Bill Crosier, the centre's managing director, said the non-profit organization had to let go a full-time staff person and a part-time employee after having roughly $93,000 of its funding from the County cut.

That's a large chunk of the approximately $250,000 the centre works with to help more than 5,000 unemployed and disadvantaged residents in Northumberland annually achieve income and housing security.

"It's going to have a big impact on services," Mr. Crosier said. "First and foremost is the loss of financial support for people in utility arrears ... Without that money we'll be at an extreme disadvantage to assist people."

But people receiving benefits through Ontario Works and the Ontario Disability Support Program will still receive help with rental and utility deposits and arrears payments, to ensure they have shelter, County officials said.

Shelter benefits along with discretionary benefits administered by the County "are not being lost, in fact we're keeping them alive and distributing the funding in a different manner," said Mark Darroch, the County's community and social services director.

"We're changing our business plan, we're changing our service delivery," he said. "We have to make sure we maintain the present programs ... with the dollars that are available, and to do things differently in order to keep those programs alive."

The County is being forced to make changes in its community and social services department as a result of funding cuts Northumberland has experienced itself. Those reductions are among millions of dollars in social assistance that have been slashed province-wide as part of the Liberal government's deficit-reduction efforts.

Northumberland is making up the shortfall with local tax dollars as much as it can, CAO Bill Pyatt said.

"If we just passed the cuts on to our residents, there would be some real hardships. We'd have more people losing their housing, which we don't want. Once somebody loses their housing, the consequences can be very, very severe."

Mr. Darroch met with the representatives of about 35 non-profit agencies in December to brief them on what was happening. He "challenged" them to re-examine their business plans and to look at opportunities for the integration and amalgamation of services and a consolidation of funding, in order to deliver services more effectively and efficiently together.

Reduced funding levels from senior levels of government is "the new normal," Mr. Darroch said, but "clients are not going to lose, that's got to be clear."

In fact, they stand to gain in the long run because of the new working relationships being developed.

"We realize there will be a lot of anxiety but the thing is we have to talk it out and work it through," he said. "I know by working together with the excellent agencies that we've got, it will work out best for the client."

Mr. Crosier said The Help Centre's board of directors has "yet to make any decisions on dropping anything."

The organization maintains an affordable housing registry "and whether we continue that or not will depend on our ability to bounce back from these cuts," he said.

It will search for other sources of funding. The United Way is already a major provider of funds and the centre augments its revenue with fundraisers.

The County has said it will provide $28,000 to help clients with utility costs and rent arrears, but "there's no assistance around administrative costs to provide the program," Mr. Crosier. "We haven't decided how the agency would be able to get the dollars out to the community when we can't hire anyone to do it."

Utility providers in urban communities contribute about $50,000 a year into a pot to help low-income families and individuals at or below the poverty level pay their hydro and natural gas bills, Mr. Crosier said.

But "we won't be able to help people as much in rural areas."

Also, with only two staff members left -- a third worker's contract ends in March -- "it's going to be harder" to help as many people at the free tax clinics The Help Centre offers each year, he said.

"It may diminish the number of returns that we can do," Mr. Crosier said. "We did almost 1,800 returns last year."